A Properly Unhaunted Place by William Alexander

My name is Rosa, and I'm so ticked at my mom for bringing us to this small town of Ingot. She's the best appeasement specialist in the world, but this town is probably the only one without a single ghost! It's BORING here! That is until the huge mountain lion with the antlered deer skull charged down from the forest. Something possessed it and later controlled the giant tree that stole my mom's voice; it took all of the words she's ever known. Something is hidden up in the woods above town, but everyone here is afraid to go up there. Heck, they've all forgotten anything ever happened or don't think it's a big deal. I've followed the road up here until it reached a dead end. Banishment is never a good idea, and what I've found here may kill everyone in the valley once it breaks!

This book is a finalist for the 2017 Cybils Award in Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction. The strangeness of the conflict is what attracted me to this book. The young appeaser is really pissed that there aren't any ghosts in this town. Rosa quickly discovers the big problem may be the townspeople have forgotten anything happened. Her character is very easy to relate to, since her appeasement methods use everyday materials. She uses salt, circles, and fire to keep the spirits away, but the big conflict is caused by someone else's banishment of the town's ghosts. A simple circle of copper wire has great power. Rosa is forced to take the lead in solving the problem, but it seems that she gained a lot of experience while working with her inept, deceased father. Much of Rosa's anger is connected to her father's death, although we don't know what happened to him until later in the plot. Rosa is obsessed with fighting ghosts the right way, and treating them with respect is a priority. However, the tension is jacked up when the banishment creates a figurative bomb that's about ready to blow up. The characters aren't overly developed, the plot isn't overly descriptive and intriguing, but I really enjoyed the book over all. It's a pretty quick read and should appeal to lovers of simple ghost stories with a twist.